Wanna Clolor

That's what Henry says when he wants me to get down the crayons so he can eat them.

Since we've decided to move forward with some of the other renovations before adding on the family room, I've been thinking a lot about our whole-house color scheme.

Our house is small {duh}, and so I've always been of the mentality that the colors of each room need to blend and flow {wall color especially}.

Right now, here is what our wall colors are {is it weird that I have them all memorized?  no?}:

Overall, I've been so happy with it.  I would recommend Fresh Linen a million times over.  We get compliments on it all the time.  It's a great warm-but-not-fleshy tan.  I'm not thrilled with the Urban Sunrise in the bathroom {it just doesn't have enough warmth}, but it works.

Now that we're doing some re-arranging, we'll need a new color scheme, which is awesome because I love changing paint colors.

In the new plan, our entry hall, hallway, and kitchen will all share walls.  So I'll need a color that works for all three.  I'd like to have a colorful kitchen, but not sure that I want a really colorful hallway.  I've tossed around the idea of colored kitchen cabinets, and it's just not for me, for several reasons.  One of the big reasons is that we have a dark grey granite countertop, and so the white cabinets just brighten up our windowless kitchen.

So back to wall color.  I'm drawn to these colors, though I'm not committed to any of them:

benjamin moore stonington grey

benjamin moore revere pewter

I'm obviously drawn to grays.  Since our granite and backsplash are gray-toned, I'm not sure that another neutral would look right.  Then I'm thinking I can add the 'fun' and color to the kitchen with accents and artwork.

Thoughts?  Any awesome paint color recommendations to pass along?

Weighing the Options

Things have been quiet on the home-improvement front.  I feel like we're hanging in limbo.

Mostly, it's not our fault.  I was really super angry about this, but I've come to terms with the fact that there's just nothing we can do about it.  In January, when we were deciding between adding on and buying a different home, I called to get pre-approved.

Well.  The news we heard wasn't good.  Sallie Mae, the owner of our souls {and Nic's student loans} accidentally 'left out' two of the loans {because we have, like, 30} when they were consolidated.  Our lovely collection of loans were due to be paid back in October, and we were faithfully paying each month.  Problem was, we had no idea about the two loans that were left out.  We weren't contacted, so we didn't know.

We found out, though, when our credit showed a past due amount for 120 days.  Wait!  What?!?  We are the kind of people who pay our bills.  I immediately called both Sallie Mae and the company that consolidates their loans, and lo and behold, no one would take the blame.  And even if they would have, credit history is pretty much written in permanent, non-washable Sharpie.

This caused our credit to drop significantly, and even though we called and made the accounts current that same day, they don't really care.  It takes credit a long time to go up {but it falls fast}.

The reason this is such a problem for us right now is that, after careful thought, we'd like to roll our addition into our mortgage.  Since our current interest rate is high {it's from 2006}, we can refinance at the same time, finance the addition, and not see much of a change in our current payment.  Awesome.

Well, except that we can't qualify right now because of someone else's mistake.

So here are our options:

1. Sell this house and buy another {which requires a much lower credit score}.  But we don't want to do this.  Not even a little.
2. Refinance the mortgage {without the new addition}, and pay for it out-of-pocket.  Not a terrible option, but we'd still have to wait at least a month.  I'm a terrible waiter.
3. Wait 2-3 months, and then go ahead with the plan.  Yes, I know this is the best option.  I totally get that.  I just suck at waiting.  Big time.

We do have some things we can do in the meantime.  Our bathroom needs some TLC, and we can move forward with the plans to update our kitchen and knock down some walls.  And I could start painting doors black!!  I'm just getting very antsy, and our contractor is anticipating building costs to jump up.  Oh, and interest rates will be going up as soon as the unemployment rate goes down {not that I'm hoping for a high unemployment rate...}.

Mostly, it is just *so* frustrating that this is even happening, because we didn't do anything wrong.  Someone else {someone bigger} made a mistake and won't take responsibility.  I get that this is a first-world problem, and we're really blessed to have a safe, warm home and a healthy, happy family.

But it still sucks.

Know what else sucks?  When your furnace dies {beyond repair} in the middle of a snowstorm.  More details on that when we actually have some.

The Master Plan

While we're planning to take on this huge renovation bit by bit, as we can afford it {no sense in getting into debt or overextending ourselves when we already have a comfortable and affordable place to live}, we want to keep our eyes on the final prize, too.

I'm sure it will keep us motivated, but we also want to make sure that every project we do will jive with our final plans.  In our opinion, there's not much sense in doing something that will 'work for now', when we can just save that money and time for the 'real' thing.

So here's a very general idea of what our final plan will be.

Of course, 'phase one' is to add on the big room in the back, and then 'phase two' will be to add on the 6-8 feet at the back, making the master bedroom bigger and creating the master bath.

It's easy to say that adding on those few feet in the back won't be too expensive {and we're hoping it won't be}, but we're pretty strict with ourselves when it comes to budgeting.  A few feet here and a few feet there add up, and then you have to factor in a few other things.  For one, our house has aluminum siding {hello 1980}, which isn't sold anymore.  So just piecing it on to the side of our house isn't an option.  It shouldn't be hard to find some vinyl siding with a matching texture/color, but putting siding on that whole side of our house {and eventually the entire house} isn't going to be free.  Plus we'll have to roof that addition, which isn't free, either.  As with any project, there are always unforeseen expenses to be accounted for.

So that's why we're taking this step-by-step.  We're definitely ones to 'enjoy the journey', so it works well for us.

Oh, and as for the black door decision?  Bless your souls, you voted in a complete tie.  So that means that I'm fully justified in going black.  Nic has a two-week business trip coming up and I'll need something to do...

Painful Susan

**Please read the post below and vote on our door color!  Nic is *not* even close to being convinced that black is a good choice.  I'll be forced to just paint them myself when he's out of town or something....**

The previous owner of our home {she had it built}, had a lazy susan in the corner of the kitchen.  Pretty common, right?

Well, then at some point she had a dishwasher installed.  A definite upgrade, but our kitchen is pretty tiny, so the only place to put it was next to the stove, cutting into the lazy susan.

So now there is a verrrry awkward cabinet between the sink and the dishwasher.  It has the tiniest opening, but it's a pretty big cupboard once you get inside.

Right now, I shove a ton of stuff in there:  glass pans, pots, pans, miscellaneous baking dishes/pans, and sometimes muffin tins or bread pans.  It's such a pain {literally}.  I'm always smashing my fingers trying to get stuff in the opening, and it's totally trashed because organizing it really isn't an option.

So what should i do?  I've thought about just closing it off and making another skinny cupboard for cookie sheets and cutting boards {I could definitely use one}, but I worry that I'd miss the space.  We're adding a little bit more cupboard space in the renovation, but not a ton.

I've Pinterested around {totally a legit word}, and I can't find anything that really utilizes the whole space.

Any thoughts?

Blacks and Whites

I'm cracking myself up with this title.  It IS Black History Month, after all.

The blacks and whites I'm talking about here are doors.

So we're definitely {well, 80% sure} going with dark wood or laminate for the floors in the house.  We'll use the same flooring throughout the whole house, with the exception of the bedrooms, which will have carpet.  I'm a pretty serious fan of the same solid flooring flowing through a home.

And we also have white trim, so I'm imagining it will end up looking something like this:

Source: flickr.com via Abbey on Pinterest

We also have a bunch of doors in our house, mostly down the hallway.  Right now, the doors are white to match the trim {duh}.  But I saw this image on Pinterest, and I'm crushing pretty hard.

Source: curbly.com via Abbey on Pinterest

So be honest...what do you think??  Would white trim + black doors + mocha floors just be too much?  I think it works in this picture...do you?

What's your opinion? Black or white?

Let's Do This

Nic and I recently decided that rather than buy or build a home that would better fit our family {sorry, but 1,008 square feet just isn't cutting it}, we're going to renovate the heck out of our current home.

And since I know you want to be involved in every little detail, I decided to start a blog about our journey so that our family blog doesn't become overloaded with paint samples and drywall dust.

Here's the plan.

This is what we are starting with:

It's your standard 7-ft-ceiling, 80's cookie-cutter home.  It's the perfect little house for a young couple, which is exactly what we were when we bought it.  We've been here for 7 years, and love our little salt box starter home.

Now that we have a couple kids, we're feeling like we need a playroom/office area, and a larger family room with plenty of space to play and relax.  So this is Phase One of our plan:

So some pretty big changes.  We're going to add on a 20x20 family room, with a mudroom entry from the garage.  We'll also move some walls around to create a larger entryway, and add some walls to create a playroom/office at the front of the house.

Currently, our washer and dryer are right in the kitchen {which I actually love}, so we're going to create a bar overtop of the washer and dryer, and knock down the wall between the entryway and kitchen, which will open things up considerably.

We're planning to move the fireplace to the new family room, and then make the kitchen a little bigger by knocking down that wall.  We'll add a pantry {that little triangle by the table}, and close off the garage entry in the kitchen.  The new mudroom will be the new garage entry.

The crazy part?  We're doing about 90% of this ourselves.  We have a sweet little amish guy coming to pour the foundation, frame, roof, and do the exterior work on the new room.  We'll do the drywall and finish work, as well as the electricity, flooring, and the fireplace construction.  We're also doing all of the other changes in the existing home ourselves.

Life's about to get crazy.

So hopefully I'll be able to chronicle this process, and hopefully you'll read along!